hackENCRYPTION
by FalconSword-7
Summary: Years after .hackDUSK, two players discover data bugs in the game. With no power against them, they seek out the Legendary .hackers.
1. New World

**.hack ENCRYPTION**  
disclaimer: I do not own .hack

This is my first .hack fanfic. So please review, oh, and no flames please.

**Chapter 1: New World**

"LOG IN!" Kenta Huraki said as he pressed the START button on his controller. Within seconds, he was in the root town, Mac Anu. His avatar was a Twin-blade in a black-sleeved blue tunic that draped slightly over his black pants that were tucked into his black boots that reached up to the middle of his shins. Two blue cloths wrapped around the lower half of his lower arms. Two short swords were in their sheiths held to his body by the sash around his waste. He stood there and turned his brown eyes toward the artificial wind that blew against his navy-blue hair that barely stretched down to his shoulders.

_"Wow… this game sure is realistic"_ he thought while he moved his character model across the bridge that crossed above the river.

_"Hm… what to do?"_ Kenta took off his VR goggles to read the beginner's guide he bought along with the software. _"Uh… let's see… hm. Here's a good area to start. Delta Bursting Passed Over Aqua Field."_ In that instant, he heard a voice coming from the speaker built into the VR goggle. "Huh?" Kenta slid the head set back over his eyes to find his character on the ground, apparently by a collision from another player.

"What are you doing just standing there in the middle of the walkway?" asked a female Long-arm standing in front of Kenta, obviously the one who ran into him.

"Uh, I'm sorry. I just took the goggles off to read the beginner's manual, so I couldn't see…" Kenta got interrupted before he could finish.

"Oh, I see. You're a newbie."

"Huh? Well yeah, I only started to play and I'm not what you'd say familiar with the game." Kenta got up and looked at the Long-arm. She had long brown hair and silver eyes. The artificial light from the digital sun created a glare on the goldenrod armor plating strapped to her upper body. Two red short sleeves covered half her upper arms while two black long fingerless gloves took up her the rest of her lower arms and hand. At the bottom of the armor was a leather belt that wrapped against crimson pants that were tucked into brown thin knee-high boots.

"So, I'm guessing you're only level one. Am I right?"

"Uh, yeah. I am."

"I see. Well, I'm going. Nice meeting you." The Long-arm said as she walked off only to see that the Twin-blade was going in the same direction. "Oh, I'm guessing you're going to a field as well."

"Yes. I am."  
"Hm. Well, I couldn't get any of my other contacts to join me. How about I add you to my party then?"

"Oh, okay then."

"Great." She said as the two walked up to the chaos gate. "Oh yeah, I'm Tomiko by the way. What's your name?"

"I'm uh…." He paused _"Wait, I never did think up of a user name"_ "I'm uh…. K... Kaizoku. Yeah."

"Hm. Nice to meet you Kaizoku." The two reached the Chaos Gate "Alright…. let's go!" Tomiko yelled as she held up her hand. "……………………" She stayed silent for that moment.

"Hm? Is something wrong?" Kaizoku queried.

"Um….I….don't know any keywords or any good ones. Heh heh…" She said as a sweat drop formed on the back of her head. Kaizoku fell to the ground anime-style.

"Hm…Well, I have some. Bursting Passed over Aqua field!" He said as he got up. Three gold rings surrounded both characters as they were teleported to a large grassy plain. Kaizoku looked around astonished by the amazing and realistic graphics of the game environment. "whoa…"

"Hey! Wake up! A magic portal's opening" Tomiko told him as a pack of three goblins materialized where the glowing yellow portal was.

"Huh? Oh, right!" Kaizoku unsheithed his two short swords and ran toward the three monsters. Kenta tapped the X button on his controller rapidly as Kaizoku cut down the monsters to 0 HP. Tomiko had already finished off the goblin she was working on leaving a lone creature in between the two players. "I got this one!" Kaizoku yelled jumping toward the goblin, but the goblin had a trick up his sleeve. He strafed to the side and Kaizoku slashed at the air. The monster then hit Kaizoku from behind and caught him off his feet. "AH!"

Tomiko had stepped in and stabbed the goblin and watched it as it disappeared from the field. "You got it huh?"

After dealing with creatures above, the two headed down toward the dungeon. By the time they reached the bottom floor, Kaizoku had leveled up twice, the same with Tomiko.

"Yes Level three!" Tomiko shouted.

"Huh? That's my level." Kaizoku pointed out.

"Yeah, I know that. So?"

"Well, I thought you were at a higher level, seeing how you fought and by how much you know about this game."

"Oh….well, no. I'm new as well. I just read everything in the manual first before I played." She said while scratching the back of her head. After going through two more rooms, they reached the Gott Statue.

"Hm… I'm guessing this is where they keep rare items." Kaizoku thought out loud.

"Yep. There's a Gott Statue in every dungeon" Tomiko said as she opened up the chest. She took the yellow candy item and Kaizoku took the Rainbow card.

"Hey, there's one more" Kaizoku reached in and grabbed a Grunty doll but so did Tomiko.

"Hm. I should keep this one"

"Why you?"

"Well, I did do most of the battling back there, Kaizoku."

"What?? But if I hadn't provided you with all those health drinks, you'd still be a ghost by now."

"Yeah, but I got you out of the mess back on B1 with that giant moth!"

"Well I was the one who killed in the end!" Kaizoku swung one of his swords and unintentionally cut the Grunty doll in two.

"NO!! Look what you did to it! It was a cute doll as well!" Tomiko said as anime tears ran down her cheeks.

"I didn't think an item as such could get destroyed in this game…"

Upon returning to the field, another magic portal was opening in front of them.

"Hm…one more won't hurt" Tomiko said as she raised her spear's point at it. Another goblin showed up.

"_I'm really getting tired of these critters right now"._ Kaizoku thought. Tomiko had stabbed the monster, but it's HP didn't go down. She removed the point from it's body only to see it regenerate.

"What the…?"

"This monster…" Kaizoku jumped to the side as the goblin tried slashing at him. Kaizoku used Tiger Claws attack on it, making contact with every spin, but the enemy still didn't loose HP. "It's not going down."

"Well no use in trying to defeat it. Let's just go!" Tomiko grabbed Kaizoku and used a speed charm to get away to exit Battle Mode and gate out. Soon, they were both in Mac Anu again.

"Hm…. something about that Goblin didn't look right. Its name was a jumble of symbols and letters, and its HP meter never went down." Kaizoku said perplexed.

"Hm…..data bug…"

"Data bug?"

"Yeah, a data bug. It's a monster that has infinite HP."

"And there's no way to defeat them?"

"No. Well, yes."

"Which is it?"

"Well, maybe no. Well, maybe yes…"

"Spit it out!"

"Well, long ago, there was a player who had the power to fight against the data bugs. While I can't remember what his name was, he had an amazing power that could rewrite the Monster's data and utterly weaken it. Four yeas after, another player got an avatar similar to his and also received that power."

"Hm. So, what kind of power is it?"

"I don't know. I guess it's something that only his avatar can get."

"Oh. I see. So, whatever happened to those two? Do you know where we can find them?"

"That, I don't know. I don't know if they are even playing this game anymore. I don't think anyone knows. There's nothing in the logs about a character with that ability."

"Hm… well, I gotta go. See ya." Kaizoku said as he logged out of "The World".

**End of Chapter 1**

**Next Chapter: Book of Twilight**


	2. Book of Twilight

.hackENCRPTION

Chapter 2: Book of Twilight

Kaizoku appeared in front of the chaos gate as the yellow rings around his character model disappeared. He looked around the root town Mac Anu and bought a couple of health drinks as well as antidotes. None of his allies on this contact list (even though Tomiko was the only one so far) were logged on, so he typed in a random key word at the gate and warped to train himself.

Delta Quiet Eternal Devil. The field was covered in snow.

"G-g-g-eeeeez, it's c-c-cold…." Kaizoku said to himself. Though everything was virtually simulated, the devise in the VR goggles stimulated the nerves in the brain, causing the player to feel a chill running through him. _"Better get to the dungeon. Surely it'll be warm in there."_

To his surprise, the dungeon walls were covered in ice.

"Okay… I could be wrong." He walked down the blue halls. Fighting was difficult here seeing that the floor was a bit slippery. Kaizoku managed to get through the first three floors fine, but used up his entire inventory of health drinks just trying to get through two rooms on the fourth basement level.

"Sigh…maybe this field is just too strong." Just as he was turning the corner, a streak of bright yellow light shot past him. He jumped back upon seeing it.

"What the…?" He said, puzzled. He ran in the direction of the beam of light and found the room with the Gott statue. He put the streak behind him and went to open the chest. The moment his character's virtual hand touched the lock, he heard static around the speaker in the VR goggles and the screen started to static as well. A few moments passed until the picture became stable again.

"_Huh? What just happened?"_ He thought. Kaizoku looked down into the chest only to find a book inside.

"_A book? I don't' see any other items…"_ The book was stored in his inventory. He opened the menu and it read "8';;;5 4T"/1(1t". _"What kind of item is this? I can't even read it."_ Kenta pressed the X button on his controller to have Kaizoku use the book, but the screen only showed static when he tried to open it.

Kaizoku gated out back to Mac Anu. He heard a ring and saw in the corner of displayed image in the VR goggle that he had received an e-mail. After logging out, Kenta checked the inbox find a letter from an unknown sender. There was no display picture and the letter was composed of jumbled symbols, random letters, and numbers. The only legible text in the mail was at the bottom.

_find the .hackers_

"…. Dot…hackers?" Kenta said perplexed. Just then he received a flash mail from Tomiko, inviting him to go to a field and help train. He slid the VR goggle on and logged in.

"There you are." Tomiko said, waiting at the Chaos Gate.

"So, where are we going anyway?"

"It's an area I found not that long ago." She said as she typed in "Delta Raging Passionate Melody" Soon, both players were surrounded with gold circles as they warped to a desert wasteland. "Okay. We just clear out the area of monsters and we should really level up."

The two ran about the field searching for magic portals. Tomiko was right. She and Kaizoku had leveled up at least 3 times after clearing the area of portals.

"Hm. The map shows one more in this area." Kaizoku stated.

"Well, let's get it then." Unbeknown to them, a modified monster was ready to spawn from the portal whenever a player got too close to it. The Twin Blade and Long Arm ran up to it and found a monster covered in green transparent hexagons. "What? A data bug?"

At that instant, the Kaizoku character started to static. The data bug stopped suddenly and looked down at the Twin Blade.

"Hm?" Kaizoku stared up at the monster. He had no time to worry about the glitch in his character model. He opened the items menu to take out a scroll to use on the beast. While searching through his inventory, he found the book item he obtained earlier and was able to read it. "Book of Twilight?" Kaizoku said, reading off the screen.

"Book of what?" his partner asked. Kaizoku had already selected "USE" from the menu and was successful in opening the book. Kaizoku looked at it but suddenly, what seemed as electric bolts came bursting out of it. Some came in contact with the data bug and Kaizoku noticed that some of the green hexagons covering it disappeared. Before he could do anymore, the area was illuminated in a large flash and everything went black on the screen. "SYSTEM ERROR" was blinking in bold red letters. Kenta slipped off the VR goggles and put them on his desk.

_"What... what just happened there?_" he wondered.

End of chapter 2

(This one was shorter then the first, but I'll try to make the next one longer)

Next Chapter: Drained Data


End file.
